Do-Not-Call List in Canada

Starting this month, Canadians will be able to register their phone numbers on a national do-not-call list, but they may find telemarketing calls replaced by junk mail and spam.

There are also telemarketing exemptions, which includes:

• Registered charities seeking donations.
• Newspapers looking for subscriptions.
• Political parties and their candidates.
• Companies that have an existing business relationship with a consumer within the previous 18 months.
• Organizations directing calls and faxes to businesses.

Canadians who don't want to receive marketing calls from a company with whom they have a relationship can ask to be put on the firm's internal do-not-call list. This would mean the company cannot call you for up to three years, even though it has a technical exemption from the do-not-call list.

When the U.S. do-not-call registry came into effect, 30 per cent of nearly $2 billion spent on telemarketing moved into direct mailing and traditional media advertising.